Warning - those of a nervous disposition may want to look away now. Don't say I didn't warn you!
One of the things I hate about this time of year is the infestation of food moths. Their real name is Indian Meal Moths, and across the Pond they call them pantry moths, but whatever you want to call them - and what I call them is not fit for publication in a family friendly blog - food moths are a pest.
They first made their presence felt in Piddock Place when Tony poured out a dish of his favourite Kellog's cornflakes. He turned to the fridge for his entera milk - I've got him onto semidesnatada for tea, but he will insist on entera for coffee, Ovaltine and cornflakes.
Anyway, by the time he turned around, the cornflakes had taken on a life of their own - they were moving around in the dish, without so much as a by your leave or a snap, crackle and pop. Sorry - wrong cereal, but I digress. There was the tell-tale tracery across the surface of the cornflakes, and closer investigation revealed the presence of equal numbers of grubs and full grown moths. Needless to say, the cornflakes - and the rest of the packet - went into the basura. When we checked the other cereals, the Weetabix, the muesli and the Jordan's Crunch which had cost me an arm and a leg in Iceland all went the way of the cornflakes. The only thing that was safe was the porridge, which was in individual foil packets.
So it was off to Domti to stock up on airtight plastic containers, then to the supermarket to replace the missing cereals. In Lidl, we saw some food moth traps, which work on the same principle as old fashioned fly papers. You could either make them into a little box, so you couldn't see the food moths trying to escape, or you could stick them on the cupboard doors and do a body count each morning. The traps are baited with pheremones, which attract the moths, and once they land, there's no way out.
Normally, I'm a peace-loving sould who wouldn't knowingly harm a fellow living creature, but the thought of the 7 Euro worth of Jordan's Crunch rendered inedible had turned my brain, so I opted for the visible version. Overnight, we trapped 10 moths on one strip, and 5 on the other.
I was relating this success story to my friend, who was equally incensed at the food moths after finding her flaked almonds had miraculously turned into ground almonds overnight. Off she headed to Lidl, and returned with enough traps to rid the whole Costa Blanca of food moths. This afternoon, I asked her how she'd got on, and she couldn't tell me for laughing.
When her husband opened the first trap, ready to construct the little box - she is much more gentle than me, and couldn't bear to watch their suffering - out flew around a dozen food moths. Our poor friends had to chase them around their casa and kill them, before they got anywhere near their precious stash of baking goods. Apparently, they'd burrowed their way into the cardboard packaging to get at the pheremones contained therein. You couldn't make it up, could you?
